My brain runs at a million miles a minute. And it never, ever stops.
When I wake up, I have a song stuck in my head. There is almost always a song stuck in my head. Maybe it’s one song that repeats over and over again. This is a pretty common experience, it’s called an earworm. Most of the time, the song is not the focus. It’s playing in the background as I experience a deluge of other thoughts. Sometimes the song reflects some subconscious experience that I am not consciously aware of. For example, one time “A Little Fall of Rain” from Les Mis popped into my head for no apparent reason, until I realized that I had just stepped outside and it was raining. Some other times the song lyrics will reflect what I’m feeling, before I even realize what I’m feeling. Most people have experienced earworms but probably do not experience them all the time, like I do. Since I am always hearing songs and the songs seem to feed off my subconscious experiences, maybe it’s accurate to call them “eartapeworms.”
Having a fast brain means I’m really good and pretty fast at crosswords. I usually can beat all my friends’ times on the New York Times Mini, though that’s probably more due to the fact that I’ve been doing crosswords since I was 14.
I’ve been semi-obsessed with improving my typing speed since high school. I was already a fast typer at around 130 wpm on QWERTY, but I learned how to type on the Dvorak and Colemak keyboard layouts so I could type faster. I’m not actually faster on Dvorak, whose design optimizes for alternating motion. However, Colemak optimizes for rolling motion, which has helped me increase my wpm to 170 wpm. This summer I am hoping to learn stenography so I can increase my wpm to over 200, to the speed of speech. Typing is really interesting for me because on one hand, I appreciate how typing can force me to slow down my thoughts. Paradoxically, I also want to make my typing speed as fast as possible so it can keep pace with my ideas.
I think I am more creative than average. However, I do not experience a greater proportion of creative thoughts. I think that I probably experience the same proportion of creative thoughts as the average person, however, because I am thinking at great speeds all the time, I think a great number of thoughts therefore a greater number of creative ideas to choose from.
Of course, if I think more creative thoughts than average, if the proportion remains the same, then I will also think more junk thoughts than average. I experience stress and anxiety much more intensely than the average person. My rapid thinking means a tendency towards overthinking and catastrophizing.
I think people talk too slow. This sounds rude to say but it is genuinely how I feel as someone who thinks quickly. I have never been able to pay attention to lecture-style classes because the instructors move too slowly so I get bored. I thrive much more in flipped classrooms, where I am allowed to process information at my own rate. Unfortunately for me, lecture is the standardized mode of learning in higher education. Even though I hate lectures, the worst part about thinking that people talk too slow is in conversations. Again, this sounds rude, but the truth is I get impatient when people are talking and are thinking of the next word to say. In under a second, my brain has already come up with the most probable next word, maybe like an advanced Markov chain. Often times I will end up blurting out the word instead of letting the other person finish their thought. 90% of the time I am correct and am happy that the person can then continue with their next thought. 10% of the time I am not correct and I feel awkward.
I interrupt conversations more than average. Usually it’s because I have auto-completed the person’s thought in my head before they have completed the sentence with their mouth so I try to move on to the next thing. I am aware that this is rude but it is extremely difficult for me to change this instinctual behavior. I have found that it’s easy for me to recover after the interruption (e.g., saying something like “sorry, you were saying?”), but it is very difficult for me to not interrupt in the first place. I genuinely do not know how to improve on something that is so impulsive. A common piece of advice is “think before you speak.” I often cannot.
I have had the fortune to experience many great storytellers in my life. I am definitely not one of them. While most people seem to tell stories like A -> B -> C, when I talk, I go A, oh that reminds me of E, and did you know that F and G, but actually G connects back to A, and then where was I? Oh yeah next is B, which is related to H, I, etc. and sometimes I find my way back to the main plotline and sometimes I go too many tangents that I forget C altogether. I can imagine the story feels very muddled for people who are listening to me. But for me, the connections make perfect sense.
My brain moves faster than my mouth is capable. This causes me to stumble over my words a lot which may cause me to sound incoherent. This is not a failure of my brain. This is a failure of my mouth.
I cannot sleep because my brain runs at a million miles a minute. Even when I am physically exhausted, even when I cannot move a muscle in my body or even lift my eyelids. My thoughts run rampant. I am typing this blog post at 3:20 AM because I could not sleep due to my many thoughts, and one of the thoughts was the idea to write a blog post about why I can’t sleep to distract me from the fact that I am currently awake.